Reply #18: Hampton and Clark

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Hampton founded the Chicago chapter of the Black Panther Party in November 1968. He immediately established a community service program. This included the provision of free breakfasts for schoolchildren and a medical clinic that did not charge patients for treatment. Hampton also taught political education classes and instigated a community control of police project.


SON OF A MINISTER
Clark was one of 17 children of the Rev. and Mrs. William Elder Clark. Rev. Clark was a well-known Pentecostal minister who died several months prior to his son’s death. Mrs. Clark lived in Michigan for many years after her son died. She reportedly later returned to the Peoria area where she died three months ago. Several Clark children still live in central Illinois while others reside out of state.

“Certainly, Mark Clark should be considered one the martyrs to the cause of black dignity and human equality,” the Rev. Blaine Ramsey, pastor at Davis Memorial Chapel in LaGrange, IL. and a one-time Peoria minister, declared in a recent phone interview. “He came to my church (in 1969) and asked me, ‘Rev. Ramsey, can we use Ward Chapel A.M.E. for our breakfast program?’ And I consented to it — no other church in Peoria would open their doors — for what I considered a worthwhile endeavor. There were a number of little children who really needed a good breakfast.”